Unneeded things in pokemon!

-Pokemon Musicals and Super Contests. R/S/E Contests were awesome; they had actual strategy, and I played them for ages in R/S/E. Super Contests and Musicals? Never even bothered with them.

-Gimmicky Pokemon that suck. I mean, if a gimmicky Pokemon has actual battling merit to it, I can accept that (examples being Gen V Ditto, Smeargle, and Zoroark). But if a gimmicky Pokemon sucks, it's useless.

Ironically, this is one of the few unnecessary things in Pokemon that can be resolved by ADDING stuff.

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especially the musicals imo. all you really do is touch the touch screen a few times.

I agree with Shiruba mostly. I don't hate IV that much, but I think they're sort of... detrimental for the cartridge multiplayer. Since everyone and their sisters will use all31 Poké, RNGed/hacked/whatnot, you are more or less forced to use them too - or use simulators, which is detrimental to Game Freak themselves (not everyone that uses simulators has to buy a copy of the game :P).

I'd give an option to turn off the IV diversity in a Wi-Fi match, effectively setting the IVs of all the Pokémon in play to 31.

I agree with Shiruba mostly. I don't hate IV that much, but I think they're sort of... detrimental for the cartridge multiplayer. Since everyone and their sisters will use all31 Poké, RNGed/hacked/whatnot, you are more or less forced to use them too - or use simulators, which is detrimental to Game Freak themselves (not everyone that uses simulators has to buy a copy of the game :P).

I'd give an option to turn off the IV diversity in a Wi-Fi match, effectively setting the IVs of all the Pokémon in play to 31.

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i'd like that. that'd totally put aside my misgivings with the system. it doesn't matter much in-game, but for link battles, it definitely does.

ohhh but make sure it's not just wi-fi; local multiplayer needs love, too!

Moderator

It's not meant for competitive battling, obviously. Not everything in the game is geared towards that. Orange Islands itself is proof. Mail is obviously used to attach to Pokemon you trade with others.

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Mail is pretty useless in this regard as well since you can hardly say anything because they're made up of pre-made text and only a handful of phrases. I kind of wish they would revert to gen II's mail mechanics, not allow it on the GTS, age restrict it on friendcode Wi-Fi, and keep the current mail free of restrictions. That seems fair imo.

I agree with Shiruba mostly. I don't hate IV that much, but I think they're sort of... detrimental for the cartridge multiplayer. Since everyone and their sisters will use all31 Poké, RNGed/hacked/whatnot, you are more or less forced to use them too - or use simulators, which is detrimental to Game Freak themselves (not everyone that uses simulators has to buy a copy of the game :P).

I'd give an option to turn off the IV diversity in a Wi-Fi match, effectively setting the IVs of all the Pokémon in play to 31.

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I don't know why people keep complaining about IVs. You're supposed to put time and effort to get the best Pokemon; it wouldn't mean much if they flat out gave you 31/31/31/31/31/31 Pokemon. They've made loopholes in the breeding system (power items, everstone) as it is, not to mention RNG being incredibly simple thanks to the work of dozens of people, and I'm sorry, but you're either too lazy, too conservative, or flat out too stupid (maybe a combination of the latter two) if your excuse for not RNGing is 'it's too hard'. The only thing I'd change about the current breeding system is for the game to give you a hex flawless Ditto.

true. very true. i think that nintendo is kinda scared of online, since people might do things like cuss at kids or something or hold their dicks up to the camera if anything involves video.

however, pokeathlon didn't have anything like that, so i'm not sure why they didn't.

SUNKERN ALL THE THINGS >:O

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But Nintendo in 4th gen games and in 5th gen games, when trading or battling with Friend Codes, they put Voice Chat ON by default. Sure Nintendo says in every manual to not to share Friend Codes with "Strange People" in the Internet, specially forums to avoid hacks and so on, but most people do it because they know few/no one people who plays pokemon and having Wifi is for to play with whoever you want.

Voice Chat should be OFF by default, a lot of times with Internet people, or with friends who I didn't want to / is not the moment because there is people close / it's late ... I said to them to press X to disable Voice Chat.

I don't know why people keep complaining about IVs. You're supposed to put time and effort to get the best Pokemon; it wouldn't mean much if they flat out gave you 31/31/31/31/31/31 Pokemon. They've made loopholes in the breeding system (power items, everstone) as it is, not to mention RNG being incredibly simple thanks to the work of dozens of people, and I'm sorry, but you're either too lazy, too conservative, or flat out too stupid (maybe a combination of the latter two) if your excuse for not RNGing is 'it's too hard'. The only thing I'd change about the current breeding system is for the game to give you a hex flawless Ditto.

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I'm not saying that 'RNG is too hard', as I myself am quite proficent at it. But I think that RNG abuse is an exploit (albeit a very useful one), and so shouldn't be considered as the "standard" way to raise a competitive Pokémon. The "old" way of breeding takes too much time and is too complex, and I think that an option like I said before is a good way to make Wi-Fi (and local multiplayer) battles more enjoyable. You want to use the IV system? Fine, just don't flick the switch.

At the very least I'd die to have an "expert mode", in which things like IVs and EVs are directly visible on the status screen and the breeding system is sped up.

I don't know why people keep complaining about IVs. You're supposed to put time and effort to get the best Pokemon; it wouldn't mean much if they flat out gave you 31/31/31/31/31/31 Pokemon. They've made loopholes in the breeding system (power items, everstone) as it is, not to mention RNG being incredibly simple thanks to the work of dozens of people, and I'm sorry, but you're either too lazy, too conservative, or flat out too stupid (maybe a combination of the latter two) if your excuse for not RNGing is 'it's too hard'. The only thing I'd change about the current breeding system is for the game to give you a hex flawless Ditto.

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yes, but the chances of it happening without rnging or cheating are... what, over one in a billion? or is it a million? i don't remember.

you're missing the point. it's not that it /can't happen/, it's that it contradicts the spirit of pokemon - honing the power of yourself and your pokemon friends and using them to overcome obstacles, not "manipulating the way the game calculates data to get a perfect pokemon via highly convoluted steps/outright cheating."

plus, not knowing about rng abuse/not being able to do it does not automatically make you stupid. even i lurked smogon for about /three years/ before i'd even heard of rng abuse - and most people don't even know that smogon exists.

Moderator

yes, but the chances of it happening without rnging or cheating are... what, over one in a billion? or is it a million? i don't remember.

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is this with or without everstone+power items?

you're missing the point. it's not that it /can't happen/, it's that it contradicts the spirit of pokemon - honing the power of yourself and your pokemon friends and using them to overcome obstacles, not "manipulating the way the game calculates data to get a perfect pokemon via highly convoluted steps/outright cheating."

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isn't breeding part of this? rng is just a shortcut, a means to an end. it's like a strategy guide; you could've figured out an alternate route to pewter on your own or find the best team to take on the PWT, but you read in a strategy guide that you can simply cut down the first tree to avoid viridian forest or that a core of suicune/garchomp/ferrothorn works great in the single battle mode. hell, they even kinda sorta tell you how to EV train nowadays. do these things detract from the spirit of pokemon?

plus, not knowing about rng abuse/not being able to do it does not automatically make you stupid. even i lurked smogon for about /three years/ before i'd even heard of rng abuse - and most people don't even know that smogon exists.

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i was referring to people that know rng exists. anyone who searches for any given pokemon are greeted with the respective analysis, so they at least know that it exists. whether they're serious about playing competitively or not, they know its there and what it does. it's their choice to come back, and smogon's moderation keeps the riffraff out.

rng is similar; anyone who's serious about wi-fi or irl competitions will use it, but anyone who isn't doesn't use it. anyone who knows about it, doesn't use it and is still 'serious' about playing competitively on wifi/vgc fits my definition of 'scrub', those whose mindsets hinder them from doing well. it's kind of sad, really.

I'm not saying that 'RNG is too hard', as I myself am quite proficent at it. But I think that RNG abuse is an exploit (albeit a very useful one), and so shouldn't be considered as the "standard" way to raise a competitive Pokémon. The "old" way of breeding takes too much time and is too complex, and I think that an option like I said before is a good way to make Wi-Fi (and local multiplayer) battles more enjoyable. You want to use the IV system? Fine, just don't flick the switch.

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i know it shouldn't be the standard. not everyone wants to battle seriously and would rather breed a few decent mons and have good times with their friends. i don't see how the obvious good pokemon+good pokemon=better pokemon system is too complex, at least at that level. i also don't understand how you think just any old joe will hop on smogon's battle finder without prior knowledge of this sort of thing, unless this is about random wi-fi, which i can understand, and ill get to that in a moment.

At the very least I'd die to have an "expert mode", in which things like IVs and EVs are directly visible on the status screen and the breeding system is sped up.

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don't we all, but this isn't going to happen because it would confuse the casuals, which are (probably) the largest crowd. not sure what you mean about speeding the system up aside from eggs hatching faster, in which case everyone would be using 'expert mode'. it isn't hard to deduce evs and ivs by plugging stats in, so w/e

probably the best way for nintendo to fix the gap between competitive players and casuals is introduce 'beginner' and 'expert' levels in random wifi like they did in their very own TCGO. sure some scrubs with a few ev trained mons will hop on beginner mode to feel better about himself, but for the most part i'd expect it to go over well, again using tcgo as a reference point. the beginners use beginner mode after getting trounced in expert, and the experts generally keep out of beginner because the matches are too easy (in the video game, i'd expect beginners would d/c against someone that 4-0'd them with quad shinies).

another thing that would be interesting would be rental pokemon and a designated server that uses them (the rentals would be taken away afterward of course). beginners would go on and practice with cookie cutter teams to get an idea of what works and as a reference of what to aim for when breeding. they could also battle their friends somewhat seriously without having to do much work or ideally have a couple of casual and competitive friends duke it out on an even playing field (this is me lol).

Meh. When XY comes out and you will have to breed to get good IV'd pokes (as no hacking and no RNGing)... I can't wait for the tears.

Its not terribly difficult to get decently IV'd pokes through breeding and its more in the spirit of the game than Hacking or RNG manipulation. I guess it'd be cool to have a homogenized IV spread for 'tournaments' but I think simulation play and a community that all too willingly hacked their mons 'legitimately' (oxymoron if I ever heard one) is the only reason we expect perfectly IV'd mons.

Fact is that perfectly IV'd mons is not the only deciding factor of competition and that player strategy/tactics should certainly level the field when considering mons in the 28-31 range. I mean at that level you are splitting hairs.

Meh. When XY comes out and you will have to breed to get good IV'd pokes (as no hacking and no RNGing)... I can't wait for the tears.

Its not terribly difficult to get decently IV'd pokes through breeding and its more in the spirit of the game than Hacking or RNG manipulation. I guess it'd be cool to have a homogenized IV spread for 'tournaments' but I think simulation play and a community that all too willingly hacked their mons 'legitimately' (oxymoron if I ever heard one) is the only reason we expect perfectly IV'd mons.

Fact is that perfectly IV'd mons is not the only deciding factor of competition and that player strategy/tactics should certainly level the field when considering mons in the 28-31 range. I mean at that level you are splitting hairs.

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I'm not so sure about this. Even a good player is at quite a disadvantage if his Latios can't outspeed a Terrakion.

Generally the only Ev that must be 31 in 99% of cases is Speed(except Trick Room, HP with Speed Iv of 30(that must be 30), and so on)
And HP in case of 100 HP base for 101 Substitutes. Anything with Ivs ranging from 26 to 31 shouldn't make a lot of difference in the majority of times.

I'm not sure if I want the contest/musical/pokeathlon/other even to go. If it's at least related to pokemon raising in some way... I think it is welcome. (I've never done the musical or pokeathlon though. Did either of those involve training/raising?)

I'm not sure if I want the contest/musical/pokeathlon/other even to go. If it's at least related to pokemon raising in some way... I think it is welcome. (I've never done the musical or pokeathlon though. Did either of those involve training/raising?)

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the musical has nothing to do with it at all.

pokeathlon... not really. the stat thresholds do change and become better if a poke is evolved (usually), and the stats of pokeathlon are somewhat dependent on your stat preferences (a timid poke would have higher speed and lower power), but most of them can be changed using apricorn juice/steroids

that said, i recommend you at least get either black 2 or white 2. there's just so much to do - my white 2 may very well be my favourite pokemon game - and that's potentially beating the nostalgia of emerald, thus definitely saying something.

"Unneeded" is very hard to define. Even apparently useless gimmicks like the musical can serve the game as a sink to loose the otherwise straight game. It is more fun for those who like to distract themselves from time to time - like us.

Was there a point to making a billion spinda and ruining every childs dream of catching them all? Or not distributing the azure flute in America or the hax fog in sinnou?

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Wait, there are people who want to catch all Spinda forms ??? I can understand for Unown even it would still be very boring but there's no point for Spinda.

I agree about the fog though, the fog and the defog TM shouldn't be implemented. Game Freak shouldn't have put so many stuff that requires TM in Sinnoh : so many rocks to climb/smash/push, trees to cut, fog to remove etc it's annoying to need HMs all the time.

Wait, there are people who want to catch all Spinda forms ??? I can understand for Unown even it would still be very boring but there's no point for Spinda.

I agree about the fog though, the fog and the defog TM shouldn't be implemented. Game Freak shouldn't have put so many stuff that requires TM in Sinnoh : so many rocks to climb/smash/push, trees to cut, fog to remove etc it's annoying to need HMs all the time.

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Starly and Bibarel are capable of covering every single HM in the game. I don't see how this is a major issue, given that these two are quite literally the first things you will encounter on your journey. IIRC the only TM field move that the two of them can't cover is Flash (I can't rmb if Bibarel gets Dig but Escape ropes are cheap enough anyway >.>), which can be covered by catching Shinx or Kricketune.

I agree with Shiruba mostly. I don't hate IV that much, but I think they're sort of... detrimental for the cartridge multiplayer. Since everyone and their sisters will use all31 Poké, RNGed/hacked/whatnot, you are more or less forced to use them too - or use simulators, which is detrimental to Game Freak themselves (not everyone that uses simulators has to buy a copy of the game :P).

I'd give an option to turn off the IV diversity in a Wi-Fi match, effectively setting the IVs of all the Pokémon in play to 31.

Moderator

I think Altering Cave is the only truly "unneeded" aspect that has been brought up in this thread so far.

Though, I think the e-Reader Battle Houses in Mossdeep City and Seven Island come a close second. They only worked in the Japanese version. In the English versions, they just hinted that "there is something beyond this door. It's probably very exciting."

Bigger than both, though, is this lovely message, found on Route 8:

"What's this flyer?
... Uncouth trainers
have been holding
battles in the
UNDERGROUND PATH.
Because of rising
complaints by lo-
cal residents, the
UNDERGROUND PATH
has been sealed
indefinitely.
CELADON POLICE"

I don't know how many hours I spend searching through the game and the Internet for clues on how to get into the Underground Path and battle these trainers. Seriously, specifically stating that "trainers held battles here" and then NOT implementing these battles, that was really uncalled for. Especially with the terrible level curve of G/S/C. The Elite Four had Pokémon with levels in the forties. The same went for the Gym Leaders in Kanto. Red had his Pokémon at lvl. 75 up. You went around feeling that there lacked trainers with Pokémon around lvl. 50-60. A place to train instead of grinding against the Elite Four. But alas...

Also, the white rock in Mossdeep. It is said to have a counterpart in Kanto. It just reeks of mystery. But... nothing special was ever linked to it.